NCRS - The Changing Midwest Assessment

Whether you think of it as "urban sprawl" or "progress," one thing is certain - it is happening in the North Central Region.

One of the best ways to track sprawl is to look at change in the number and spatial arrangement of housing units on the landscape.

This slide show is comprised of maps that depict how housing density (number of housing units per square mile) in the North Central Region changed between 1980 and 2000. Change was calculated at the county level using U.S. Census data (Radeloff et.al., 2000).

Note: To learn more about how the U.S. Census Bureau defines primary and seasonal housing units, please visit:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs99/appendixa.pdf